Standing in our gift

Hello again!
Let's uplift each other.
Having looked at the music I created - for animals, for plants, for history, for the planet, for spirit - I realized I seem to have forgotten the human aspect.
I want to be able to help.
I want to write a digital poetry book that supports the Pachamama Alliance.
I want to release a calendar of my art that supports the Ocean Conservancy, with an interactive "submit your own art for next year's November".
I want to perform with my partner a transformative & empowering theatrical concert.
I want to keep making my art, but about you, & not about me. I want to build others up.
That had been my blind spot for a long time, if I look back through the music. I wanted to help the environment, but I didn't think that through helping people, I can help the environment!

I am changing the "I want to" to "I will"!

With "Get Brave!", I had tried to "shock people awake" (into my perspective).
With "eco-Lectronica", I had tried to blend genres & craft catchy melodies to plant the environmental message as an earworm.
But still they both served ME.
Instead I want to help OTHERS.

It is so empowering to create from a space of "How can I interact with people that leads to the environmental shift I want to see in the world?". It is so empowering to EMPOWER OTHERS.

I have a list of possibilities I am looking at right now.
There are niches of access for me: I can connect with gay men in this country (America) who are CLOSE to winning marriage equality. (Not 100% won yet, but close!) I want to remind these men that once the "battle is won", let's turn our power, our attention, our giving, onto other important issues, rather than go back to our lives of ME. Let's turn our attention next to The Environment! To supporting those women that held our hands by fighting with grace for their rights to equal pay & to protecting their right to choice. To ensuring that this has not just been a white man's issue, but that gay people of all heritage are recognized as part of our varied community!
I want to empower people who have been through sexual molestation/abuse. I have been through it, & I want to be able to help how I can to lift them up. From victims to champions.
I want to encourage people to explore art in a way that teaches our symbiosis, our connections to each other across cultures - all within an environmental framework. We are the rainforest.

Everyone is important, & I don't mean to include only a few niches. These are simply two examples of how I can begin to affect change in communities with a close relation to me. The next step would be to communicate with those who do not have a close relation to me. The walls are coming down as I realize how important this is. I have been preaching to a choir (& I love you for listening), but it's time to share, listen, & exchange with those beyond the clergy (so to speak)!

That's my check-in, I suppose!

I will report on more of these next time!

All my best to you
-Kaioni

Here's a little update.
I suppose I'm not online so often.
I am taking the Pachamama Alliance's Game Changer Intensive. It is incredible & I recommend it!
http://www.pachamama.org

I'm in the process of recording the Zazie covers, at the same time that I've been working on the triple language album that I am now calling Solar.  (French, Spanish, English. 2016)  But really, with this Intensive, I'm looking at so many things & assessing what I can do beyond music. My brothers live on a Sustainable Agriculture Institute & are really working with their communities, building the new dream. I was near them for a time. I want to be there again & get my hands "dirty"!

Though I've written the next musical project, the reason it is important to me to translate alot of Zazie's music into English is that she writes such powerful songs. L'Amour Dollar, Rodeo, Sauver Le Monde, La Dolce Vita, Je Suis Un Homme, Flower Power, Des Rails, etc etc etc I could go on & on. These have beautiful messages in the lyrics that can touch many, & she is a huge inspiration of mine.

I have put together a performance for when I get to California. This is a more theatrical show, pulling from the albums I've already released. The inspiration is the Ocean & through the show I hope to tell a story of going inward & understanding our capabilities, diving to the bottom of the Ocean, & coming up with knowledge of how connected we are, & that we're all in this together. It's a story of connecting with every living thing as if it was our sacred duty. It's real, not some wishy-washy blissed-out message, but a tangible, constructive thing that I have seen, especially through my brothers.

Three years ago, I released the "Get Brave!" album. This was very electronic, & the theme was tragedy. Now here I am, aiming for positive-wave music, with my voice, a guitar, an upright bass, a drum made out of anything & whatever comes. & it may not even be music! We have so much inside us, don't we, that brings us together. Talents, ideas, inventions, conversations, sharing, etc etc.

In other news, I believe in you. You have every moment of your life in your hands. We're connected - isn't it exciting!!

Thank you!
-kaioni

Happening

I have alot in the works.

I suppose, as someone who creates (& most of you would understand this from your own lives) that I have no off switch with "my work". I'm constantly making something - if it's not writing songs & making music, it's addressing some aspect of that (e-mailing musicians, performing, etc.). If it's not pertaining to that, it's in another sphere: sewing/clothing, drawing, writing stories, dancing, etc.

As someone who tends to do rather than promote (or at least, when I promote/talk about what I want to do, it comes in big bursts!), I felt the need to share something, spill my guts on all I'm doing.

I am very proud of "Hadopelagia". With this project, I largely abandoned my earlier desire to make something catchy & decided to simply explore (& bare) my soul. It was minimalistic & it was the most fun to make.

The current project I am working on is still in its infancy. I am finally going to be doing what I wanted to & knew I would be eventually: creating a "folky" emotive global fusion acoustic "analog" project. No vocal tricks. Real. More live. More flowing. Less calculation required. Less buttons pushed & more strings plucked. More musicians involved (a band!!). Instrument lessons.

I call this a "project" rather than an album, because I never know how many tracks it will be. I might decide to do something small - 8 tracks. I've been looking at my catalog of songs, & deciding which to remake into these acoustic folk renditions. ("Thought Control" is a start) This would then be 

I've been listening to Mercedes Sosa, Inkuyo, Loreena McKennitt, & Pachakuti more than ever before. Zazie's acoustic stuff as well. I have other inspirations that have touched me here & there (don't we all?) in various ways (Queen, Stevie Wonder, India Arie, Brandy, Aaliyah) but aren't as complete guides as the aforementioned.

I'm in love with music, with singing, with making music. 

When you listen to "Get Brave!" (2011), you hear my fears.

When you listen to "eco-Lectronica" (2012), you hear my ideals.

When you listen to "Hadopelagia" (2013), you hear my spirit.

This current project (2015, likely) contains my passion, my love, my voice. A culmination of all of them. When you listen to it (I hope that) you feel my SOUL & are touched more than any of the other music.

I have been putting videos online of my performances & will add a variety of other things.

Among them, discussing each album, discussing the music & influences I grew up with, & where I am at this moment, vocally, musically, creatively.

This is the project I will make both a Spanish & French version of. 

I'm very excited!!

The inspiration for music videos (for "Spectrum" & "Wake The Dead") definitely is there for 2014. 

I've performed some electronic sets at a few clubs here in NY lately. Even though it is the sound I am not utilizing with my current project, it is still a fun change of pace. I look forward to the day that I am with a band on stage!! Even if that band is just an upright bassist, a flute player & a tabla player. (tablist?) (or whatever other combination. I want to have fun with it & I get bored with "keys, two guitars, bass, drums"). 

I suppose that's all for now. It just feels good to get it out, to write it down, to share it, even if it's just with myself.

all the best 

Coming soon